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Editorials from around the country

Posted:
11/05/2012 12:00:00 AM MST

The truth hard to dig up

Truth took a holiday this election season as the candidates plumped themselves up and tried to stick a needle in their opponents. Nothing new there, of course. But the hedging, exaggerating, prevaricating and outright lying does seem more pronounced -- perhaps because, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court, so much more money is available outside the campaigns to put up sleazy advertising.

The resulting noise, driven by the political consultants, turns off voters even if they turn off the television -- which they should.

Take this ad from Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate. The ad claims:

"Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job."

As Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker at The Washington Post, pointed out, it's usually a sign of a sketchy ad when it's not announced beforehand. The ad, combined with Romney's misstatements on the campaign trail, earned him Kessler's highest dishonor: four Pinocchios.

But President Barack Obama's ads haven't been much better. One of his ads earned three long noses from Kessler last month. The president's campaign used a cropped video clip from an older ad to claim that Romney backed a law that outlawed abortion in all instances, even after a rape or incest. Despite Romney's flip-flops on this issue -- and many others -- the Republican has said over and over during the 2012 campaign that abortions should be legal in cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

FEMA showing it can do a good job

Hurricane Katrina's direct hit on New Orleans in 2005 brought disaster in many ways: almost 1,800 lives lost, $108 billion in property damage and for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a lingering reputation for failure.

In fact, it might have meant the end for the agency, which can trace its roots back more than 200 years. There's been talk in the long presidential selection process leading up to next Tuesday's election that FEMA might be a worthy target for elimination or privatization in the name of federal budget-cutting.

Hold on. FEMA, the dope of Katrina, may be turning into the hero of Superstorm Sandy.

In terms of lives affected, Sandy is bigger than Katrina. Millions of people live in the path of the superstorm, which moved onshore last Monday in New Jersey. FEMA's success in its mission of coordinating federal relief efforts, assisting state and local emergency response teams and, as the name says, emergency management, was essential.

Could states or private industry do the job?

No. There could be no better demonstration than Sandy that a well-run federal emergency response is crucial in a major disaster. If we didn't have FEMA, we'd need the same agency by another name.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Crucial gap puts lives at risk

As early as Oct. 22, when Hurricane Sandy was just a churning spout of turbulence in the distant Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center in Miami was already warning that it could develop into a storm with potentially devastating impact on the East Coast.

One computer model showed Sandy growing into a monster hurricane with a lethal punch, aiming directly for the mid-Atlantic.

You know the rest -- the worst-case scenario became reality. Today, that part of the country is reeling from the beating Sandy delivered.

But residents can't say they didn't have sufficient time to prepare for the onslaught. They had at least one week.

Here's what you may not know: Advance warnings, made possible by an array of images and information delivered by satellite, could be a thing of the past. Or, almost as bad, they could be less accurate, and less timely, due to a looming gap in our weather eye in the sky.

The reasons are many, but it comes down to this: The satellites with pole-to-pole orbits crossing the equator that forecasters rely on are nearing their life expectancies and neither Congress nor the agencies that run the program have made adequate preparation for a new generation of sky-rovers. Best estimate is that it may be 2017 before a replacement is launched.

Government response after the event is crucial, but being prepared is even better. We urge Congress and the next president to take this issue seriously.

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